Bokani Dyer Trio launches new finely crafted album Neo Native

Multi-award-winning composer and pianist Bokani Dyer is set to launch his fourth studio album, Neo Native, an intimate, inviting listening experience and a reimagination of the sound of the standard piano trio.

Dyer’s trio have made up his performance outfit for the past two years. They are Sphelelo Mazibuko (drums) and Romy Brauteseth (bass), and together with Dyer, they have forged a sound in which all members are at home in the music allowing the freedom for new interpretations at every performance. It is evident from the music on Neo Native that the three musicians share strong chemistry.

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The 14-track album features new material as well as reimagined works from previous albums Emancipate the Story (2011) and World Music (2015).

Bokani Dyer Trio at The Orbit. Photo by Siphiwe Mhlambi

“Neo Native is an idea about identity. How one chooses to identify and a question of what a person feels connected to as native. In the human experience beyond geography, where does the feeling of home reside?” says Dyer.

Dyer has been a leading voice in the new wave of young contemporary jazz musicians in South Africa in recent times. In 2009, he won a scholarship for further study in the SAMRO Overseas Scholarship Competition, in 2011, he was awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Jazz, and in 2013, he returned and managed to clinch first place in the SAMRO Overseas Scholarship Competition.

His past albums have been well received locally and internationally:

“Compositions, playing and the consistency of Dyer’s voice and vision make Emancipate the Story one of my top albums of the year,” wrote Gwen Ansell in the Business Day.

And:

“His own vision of this ideal is based on musical egalitarianism, or, as noted on his own website, ‘a celebration of all music with no borders.’ And while that may seem too lofty a goal, he does a remarkable job seeing it through here. Nothing is off limits as Dyer uses his pen and piano to craft a musical Esperanto of sorts,” wrote Dan Bilawsky in All about Jazz

You can attend an album launch at a music venue in the following cities in May:

3 May – The Orbit Jazz Club, Joburg

4 May – The Chairman, Durban

5 May – Nassau Centre, Groote Schuur High School, Cape Town

6 May – Guga sthebe cultural centre, Langa, Cape Town

The album Neo Native will be available online from 16 May and in stores around South Africa from early May.

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